Benin, 1998

On

behalf of the delegation of the Republic of Benin, allow

me to express to Mr. Didier Opertti my warm

congratulations upon his brilliant and unanimous election

as President of the General Assembly at its fifty-third

session. His human skills and vast experience in

international affairs, as well as his dedication to the main

causes of our Organization, augur well for the success of

the important deliberations of this session. My delegation

would like to assure him of its full cooperation.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank

Mr. Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine, who so skilfully and

devotedly presided over the last session of the General

Assembly. Allow me to associate to this tribute Mr. Kofi

Annan, our Secretary-General, whose dedication and great

diplomatic skills have given greater nobility to our

Organization and new reasons for hope to our world. I

should like to welcome here the efforts of this great

African for the international community.

My country, the Republic of Benin, could be

perceived as just a dot on the world map and perhaps just

as a jot on the map of Africa. In fact, the Republic of

Benin is not manufacturing any atomic bombs, nor has it

any intention of building or possessing them. But it is

without any hesitation that I am speaking before the

representatives of the international community and all the

major Powers gathered here to express the profound

concerns we have over the state of the world today, and

to voice our hopes.

Benin may be only a small point on the world map,

but it wants to be a point of convergence — not only in

Africa, but also for the entire international community.

We want to commit ourselves to building peace rather

17

than bombs, and to promote international cooperation —

and to promote it first at home.

The Government of Benin is committed to building

peace by consistently cultivating tolerance and a spirit of

sharing. There is no other explanation for the ever growing

consolidation of democracy in Benin. Eschewing the words

and customs of others, the people of Benin have boldly

chosen a multi-party system after many years of curtailed

political freedoms. In other words, they have chosen a

politics of peace and tolerance. Today more than 100

political parties vie against each other, unite or clash, but

they do so in peace and with respect for the Constitution

and the law.

My delegation believes that there is no more urgent

task today than replacing the culture of violence and war

which has marked humanity since the dawn of history and

which has so overwhelmed and gravely afflicted Africa and

other regions of the world. That culture must be replaced

by the culture of peace. We believe that the foremost duty

of our Organization continues to be the promotion of peace

and all its values and the behaviour that underpins and

strengthens it.

We believe that the first of these values is the spirit of

sharing. There can be no peace in the world if a small

portion of humanity can surf the Internet and explore

interstellar space while others flounder in quagmire, seeking

a mere pittance or safe shelter in their flight from wars

whose root cause is a desire to retain power — the power

to control land, gold, oil, diamonds and other natural

resources solely for the benefit of arms dealers.

This apocalyptic picture is unfortunately typical of the

sad situation in Africa. It is therefore important to unite all

our efforts to halt all conflicts, not only in Africa, but also

in Europe, the Balkans — indeed, wherever they arise.

The spirit of tolerance and sharing has prompted my

Government to develop the concept of a common social

minimum. This means that all citizens of Benin, wherever

they reside, must be able to feed, house, clothe, care for

and educate themselves. It would be desirable for a

common social minimum to be proclaimed as an essential

objective on the global scale.

I should like to pause here to commend the efforts and

great sacrifices made by various Governments and

international organizations — particularly the Organization

of African Unity (OAU), the Economic Community of

West African States (ECOWAS), through its Monitoring

Group (ECOMOG) and the United Nations itself — to

restore peace to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Ethiopia,

Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Whether in Africa or the Balkans, what lasting

solution can possibly be imposed by force of arms today?

Why do Mr. Savimbi and those who support him, either

covertly or overtly, refuse to see that the time for peace

has come for the martyred people of Angola?

With respect to all those conflicts in Africa, the

Republic of Benin welcomes the report (A/52/871)

presented by the Secretary-General at the request of the

Security Council on the causes of conflict in Africa. The

Secretary-General?s appeal deserves to be heard and

supported, not only by Africans but also by all those

whose political, economic or financial decisions will

influence the future of the continent.

If the spirit of peace, sharing and tolerance prevailed

in the Middle East, the long-delayed peace would

undoubtedly be established there. We have learned in

recent days of the efforts which have been resumed so

many times by the United States of America to end the

stagnation of the peace process, for which

Mr. Netanyahu?s Government is principally responsible.

Let us hope that peace will have a better chance this time.

One of the main items on our agenda is the

strengthening of the non-proliferation regime and the

banning of nuclear tests. In this connection, the Republic

of Benin welcomes the decision by India and Pakistan to

sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear

Weapons (NPT). We have no particular lesson for those

two great countries, which are our friends. But it is clear

to us that the possession of atomic bombs cannot offer

either of them a lasting victory; only a prosperous country

and people can confer that.

Humanity will continue to be under threat until the

current stockpile of nuclear weapons is destroyed. The

major nuclear Powers must today admit this self-evident

truth.

While nuclear weapons pose a permanent danger to

us all, small arms in my country sow permanent

insecurity and hamper our economic development efforts.

Last May a group of heavily armed gangsters attacked a

bank in broad daylight right in the middle of Cotonou,

killing security guards and making off with tens of

millions of francs. If small arms were not available, such

incidents and armed conflicts would certainly be less

18

common, and outlaws would not be as terrifyingly effective

as they are today in numerous countries where ill-equipped

police and militias cannot resist them. The massacre must

be stopped, first and foremost by dealing with those who

are primarily responsible — the producers and exporters of

small arms.

That is why Benin supports the conclusions of the

International Conference on the Proposed Moratorium for

Small Arms Transfers in West Africa, which was held in

Oslo, Norway, from 1 to 2 April 1998.

It has been said that a hungry man is not a free man.

I have spoken at length about arms, conflicts and wars

because, basically, my delegation is hopeful that by banning

the former we can more easily end or at least diminish the

latter.

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights, it is important to emphasize

that the affirmation of human rights must go hand in hand

with the eradication of poverty. We cannot speak seriously

about human rights, liberty or democracy in a country

where the people have neither bread nor schools.

My country hopes that bold and vigorous measures

will be taken, particularly by the richest countries, so that

those whom globalization leaves inexorably by the wayside

can be given a chance to enter the twenty-first century with

a little more hope. The bold measures must relate in

particular to the issues of debt and the allocation of

additional resources for development.

Like many other countries in Africa, Asia and

America, the Republic of Benin has taken control of its

destiny by carrying out reforms that have often proved very

difficult. Even if our development partners are standing

beside us, these reforms and efforts express first and

foremost the desire of our States and our peoples to take

charge and to emerge from underdevelopment and poverty.

And we have begun to obtain results. In my country, for

example, economic growth has now surpassed demographic

growth.

We must carry our burden even if we have to do so

on our knees; we must not let it fall. I therefore call upon

all those responsible for making economic decisions at the

global level to support more vigorously the efforts of

countries whose burden has brought them to their knees.

In this context, I should like to reaffirm the

importance that the Government of Benin attaches to the

operational development activities of the United Nations

system, which, we are pleased to say, are aimed at

enabling the recipient countries to take control of their

own development. We believe that the decline in

contributions to core resources for funds and programmes

such as the United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP), the United Nations Children?s Fund (UNICEF)

and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is a

dangerous handicap. The Government of Benin hopes that

the donor countries will demonstrate greater solidarity by

increasing the resources that they allocate to those

institutions.

Nevertheless, I should like to thank all of the funds,

programmes and specialized agencies of the United

Nations whose technical and financial support in the past

five years has been decisive in enabling us to pursue

programmes aimed at constructing a State based on the

rule of law and building a prosperous nation in which all

the citizens of Benin can have a minimum of their

common social requirements met. I should also like to

welcome all the initiatives of the United Nations system,

which have long been working for the development of

Africa, as well as the actions of all our development

partners, in particular Japan, which have ranked the

development and economic recovery of the continent

among their priorities.

Although they may be positive and praiseworthy,

initiatives to benefit Africa must henceforth meet the

fundamental needs and priorities of the African countries.

It is in this spirit that in several days? time Benin will be

participating in the second Tokyo International

Conference on African Development (TICAD II). Our

hope, which many others share, is that that Conference

will go beyond the declaration that will no doubt be

adopted and lead to a programme of concrete action

aimed at finding solutions to the problems of the

continent at the close of the twentieth century.

At the beginning of my statement I referred to the

spirit of tolerance and sharing. I believe that our

Organization is the pre-eminent forum in which we can

learn and refine this spirit. Despite all the criticism, the

United Nations has, to date, proved irreplaceable. We

must continue to try to refine it and to carry out reforms.

In conclusion, therefore, I would like to reaffirm that

the reform of the United Nations, which was begun under

the bold initiative of Mr. Kofi Annan, deserves to be

19

supported and developed so as to guarantee the necessary

conditions for the harmonious pursuit of the process of

democratizing international relations at the dawn of the next

millennium. If we want to begin the twenty-first century

with self-confidence, and if we want the efforts and

sacrifices that have been made thus far on the tortuous and

rugged path to development not to have been in vain, we

must do our utmost to focus greater attention on the

principle of world partnership and the duty of solidarity,

which is what the new international order necessarily

implies.

The twenty-first century may become one in which a

blind global economy using the most sophisticated science

and technology at the same time enslaves three quarters of

humanity. This must not happen. Let us act now so that the

next century can become the century of civilization par

excellence, the century of sharing and of solidarity, the

century of culture and the century of peace. The Republic

of Benin is ready to play its part in this necessary struggle.